Conclusion

Motivation is the intent and the driving force behind our actions. It can be intrinsic, such as the pleasure we find in certain activities, or extrinsic, that is, goal directed. Blue zone leaders, who excel at execution and operations, tend to be motivated by getting things done on time and under budget with high quality; they excel at increasing short-term productivity and profitability within an organization. Red zone leaders, who excel at seeing and seizing new opportunities that will bring top-line growth, fame, and success to their organizations and themselves, tend to be driven primarily by self-interest.

Unlike smart leaders, who tend to be self-centered, wise leaders are other-centered. They are mainly motivated by enlightened self-interest. They are driven by the belief that what is in the public interest is eventually in the interest of all individuals and groups, including themselves and their organizations. Wise leaders do care about bottom-line productivity and top-line growth, but they pursue these business objectives in a collaborative way by forging partner ecosystems that collectively strive to serve a noble purpose while simultaneously cocreating value for all members in an ecosystem.

As a leader in today’s increasing complex and interdependent world, you can no longer afford to do everything yourself or think that your organization can or should operate on its own. You need to reach out to partners and cocreate value with them. When you undertake any new project or venture that involves other people or organizations, instead of asking, “What’s in it for me?” focus on the question, “What’s in it for others?” The answers you discover may surprise you.

In addition to reading about other leaders and organizations operating from a place of enlightened self-interest and cocreation of value, here are some ways you can cultivate enlightened self-interest. Use these points as touchstones or ways to focus your reflection about the purpose and meaning of your initiatives:

• When identifying your long-term priorities, choose to invest in projects that are aligned with your North Star. These will be meaningful to you and fulfill your deepest aspirations.
• Learn to differentiate short-term motivation from long-term motivation. You may need to forgo immediate gratification for the sake of achieving bigger and longer-term gains for you, your organization, and the larger society.
• If you are competitive by nature, recognize that business is not a zero-sum game. Eschew win-lose strategies and start working to cocreate win-win scenarios with partners—ideally, scenarios that both serve a noble purpose and deliver sustainable value to everyone in your ecosystem, though even give-and-take and synergistic scenarios are an improvement over a zero-sum stance.
• Engage in every project with a learning attitude. If it is boring and you get demotivated, find ways to make the project more engaging and meaningful. Can you reframe the project in a way that adds interest and value to it? Can you help others on the project team complete their tasks and learn more about their job?
• See whether your happiness can multiply by bringing happiness to others. In other words, see whether you can bring energy, enthusiasm, and happiness to your colleagues and partners and help fulfill their goals and increase their motivation. What is the result for your own happiness and motivation?

As you begin to cultivate enlightened self-interest, strive to align it with the other five capabilities discussed in previous chapters: all of them are interlinked and synergistic. Each chapter contains one or more lists of questions and suggestions to understand and build a version of the capability that reflects wise leadership.

Begin by reconnecting with your noble purpose:

• Do the opportunities you see for enlightened self-interest get you closer to fulfilling it (chapter 2)?
• Take appropriate actions that are also authentic for you. These will bring you great satisfaction and lead to increasing trust and respect for your leadership within your organization’s ecosystem (chapter 3).
• Reflect on whether the role you are playing is allowing you and others to lead effectively. If it is not, you may need to switch to another role that you will find more fulfilling or recalibrate your commitment to the role you are in—that is, exercise role clarity (chapter 4).
• Examine whether your decision logic is leveraging your intuition and instincts effectively and whether it is based on wise discernment (chapter 5).
• Reflect on episodes that show your fortitude. Are you flexible and resilient or rigid and unpredictable (chapter 6)?

Based on your assessment, how does your vision for enlightened self-interest support the other five capabilities?

Aligning your motivation with the other five capabilities optimizes your wise leadership. It has to be done consciously and iteratively, until you are comfortable that all six capabilities are synergized and are allowing you to be the best leader you can be. We call this process developing your own wisdom logic. As you evolve as a wise leader, you can accelerate your own transformation by partnering with other leaders and creating a field of wise leadership. When you start leveraging collective wisdom to develop wise leadership in others around you—on your team, in your organization, and beyond—you truly act and lead with wisdom. Finding your wisdom logic and creating a field of leadership are the focus of the next and final chapter.